Winckelmann History of the Art of Antiquity History of the Art of Antiquity
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Dec 05, 2020 Dr G rated it really liked it
This is a remarkable work; on its own terms, one would unhesitatingly give it 5 stars, and I accept only refrained from that on the basis that, as a volume to be read at present, it does suffer somewhat as an aged work.
Winckelmann'south scholarship, his thoroughness, his exhaustive pursuit both of aboriginal texts and of art works, and his innovative integration of history, philosophy and fine art criticism, are outstanding. Many elements of his critique chop-chop became orthodoxies in the discussion of art generally This is a remarkable work; on its ain terms, 1 would unhesitatingly give it five stars, and I have only refrained from that on the footing that, as a book to be read at present, information technology does endure somewhat as an aged work.
Winckelmann's scholarship, his thoroughness, his exhaustive pursuit both of aboriginal texts and of art works, and his innovative integration of history, philosophy and art criticism, are outstanding. Many elements of his critique rapidly became orthodoxies in the word of art by and large, only especially the art of aboriginal Greece and Rome. A skillful many are yet considered respectable today.
The scale of his achievement is especially notable when it is recalled that he was writing around the eye of the eighteenth century when many of the works were only just being discovered and viewed as meaning art. And it should non exist forgotten that Winckelmann was the son of a cobbler and a weaver, and sought his own pathway through university study and and then patronage, until the ability of his analysis made him an best-selling expert. Equally he wrote, he certainly showed an balls in his ideas, revealing no sense of inferiority from his humble beginnings.
Much of Winckelmann'due south theory is built upon a rather rigid framework within which he described the art of classical Hellenic republic as moving from the necessary to the beautiful (simpler; grander; more refined; graceful) to the superficial. (He saw Hellenism as less pure, overrefined and elaborated).
One of his most enduring views is succinctly described by Alex Potts in his introduction to this book, "in the end, the stardom he made between Greek and Roman art was vague and qualitative rather than stylistic, with all the finer, ideal piece of work being categorised as Greek and piece of work whose way or execution seemed in some way inferior by and large being categorised equally Roman." It has really simply been in the last 50 years or so that this notion on the Greeks and Romans has been effectively challenged.
When he describes works which really appeal to him, Winckelmann's language is cute. He describes the Belvedere Heracles: "The artist will admire in the contours of this body the ever changing of one form into another and the gliding features that rise and fall like waves and are engulfed by 1 another….The bones seem clothed in a fleshy skin, the muscles are plump but without excess, and such a balanced fleshiness is found in no other figure."
Of the Laokoön, he writes, "Every bit the hurting swells his muscles and tenses his nerves, his fortitude of spirit and strength of mind are manifested in the distended brow. The chest strains upward with stifled breath and suppressed waves of feeling, so that the pain is contained and blocked inside. The fearful groan he draws in and the jiff he takes empty the belly and hollow out the sides, exposing to our view the movement of his entrails, as it were. Nonetheless his own suffering seems to concern him less than the agony of his children, who plow their faces toward their father and cry out for help. The father'south heart is manifested in the wistful eyes, and his compassion seems to float over them like a cloudy exhalation. His face up is plaintive rather than agonised; his eyes turned toward the higher ability. The mouth is total of sorrow, and the lowered bottom lip is heavy with it; in the up drawn top lip, this sorrow is mixed with hurting, which in the staring of discontent, equally at an undeserved and unworthy suffering, runs up to the olfactory organ, swelling it and manifesting itself in the dilated and upwardly drawn nostrils."
And, of the Dais Apollo, "this Apollo surpasses all other images of him every bit much every bit the Apollo of Homer surpasses those betrayed past later poets. His build is elevated above the homo, and his stance bears witness to the fullness of his grandeur. An eternal springtime, like that of the blissful Elysian Fields, dress the alluring virility of mature years with a pleasing youth and plays with soft tenderness upon the lofty construction of his limbs. Become with thy spirit into the realm of incorporeal beauties and seek to become a creator of a heavenly nature, so that the spirit might exist filled with beauties that rise above nature – for here there is nothing mortal, nothing that betokens miserable humanity. No veins or sinews heat and motility this body, but rather a heavenly spirit that, flowing like a gentle stream, has saturated, as it were, every profile of this figure."
Mind you, for all of the high poeticism of these descriptions, his denunciations of writers with whom he disagrees are peremptory and edgeless: "… previous treatises on ancient clothing have been more learned than instructive and specific, and thus an artist, having read them, would be less knowledgeable than earlier. Such writings are compiled by individuals whose knowledge comes merely from books, not from visual acquaintance with works of fine art." (Information technology is worth pointing out that Winckelmann'south own descriptions of the representation of fabric are remarkably perceptive in their minute analysis.)
He dismisses 1 Malvasia, "a historian of the Bolognese painters and a human being without gustatory modality."
From the distance of some centuries, we can be amused by some of his outmoded attempts at science: "Fifty-fifty the parts of the genitals have their special beauty. Of the testicles, the left one is ever larger, as it is plant in nature."
"The Campanians were a people in whom the mild climate that they enjoyed and the fertile soil that they cultivated instilled voluptuousness." And, "… the warmer the region of Italy, the greater the talents that information technology fosters, and the more fiery the imagination: the Sicilian poets are full of rare, new and unexpected images. Yet this peppery imagination is not aroused and ebullient; rather, like the temperament of the people and the conditions of this land, information technology is more compatible than in colder countries – for nature gives rise to an auspicious phlegm here (in Italy) more often than there." It is surely the example that, in three hundred years, many of our ain assumptions will have become ludicrously quaint.
This edition of Winckelmann contains a valuable 36 page introduction by Potts, and the text itself is of 240 pages, each densely printed. The quality of the whole product is consistently impressive. At that place is a peachy joy to be had from reading this almost erudite and challenging of pathfinders. ...more
Winckelmann'south scholarship, his thoroughness, his exhaustive pursuit both of aboriginal texts and of art works, and his innovative integration of history, philosophy and fine art criticism, are outstanding. Many elements of his critique chop-chop became orthodoxies in the discussion of art generally This is a remarkable work; on its ain terms, 1 would unhesitatingly give it five stars, and I have only refrained from that on the footing that, as a book to be read at present, information technology does endure somewhat as an aged work.
Winckelmann's scholarship, his thoroughness, his exhaustive pursuit both of aboriginal texts and of art works, and his innovative integration of history, philosophy and art criticism, are outstanding. Many elements of his critique rapidly became orthodoxies in the word of art by and large, only especially the art of aboriginal Greece and Rome. A skillful many are yet considered respectable today.
The scale of his achievement is especially notable when it is recalled that he was writing around the eye of the eighteenth century when many of the works were only just being discovered and viewed as meaning art. And it should non exist forgotten that Winckelmann was the son of a cobbler and a weaver, and sought his own pathway through university study and and then patronage, until the ability of his analysis made him an best-selling expert. Equally he wrote, he certainly showed an balls in his ideas, revealing no sense of inferiority from his humble beginnings.
Much of Winckelmann'due south theory is built upon a rather rigid framework within which he described the art of classical Hellenic republic as moving from the necessary to the beautiful (simpler; grander; more refined; graceful) to the superficial. (He saw Hellenism as less pure, overrefined and elaborated).
One of his most enduring views is succinctly described by Alex Potts in his introduction to this book, "in the end, the stardom he made between Greek and Roman art was vague and qualitative rather than stylistic, with all the finer, ideal piece of work being categorised as Greek and piece of work whose way or execution seemed in some way inferior by and large being categorised equally Roman." It has really simply been in the last 50 years or so that this notion on the Greeks and Romans has been effectively challenged.
When he describes works which really appeal to him, Winckelmann's language is cute. He describes the Belvedere Heracles: "The artist will admire in the contours of this body the ever changing of one form into another and the gliding features that rise and fall like waves and are engulfed by 1 another….The bones seem clothed in a fleshy skin, the muscles are plump but without excess, and such a balanced fleshiness is found in no other figure."
Of the Laokoön, he writes, "Every bit the hurting swells his muscles and tenses his nerves, his fortitude of spirit and strength of mind are manifested in the distended brow. The chest strains upward with stifled breath and suppressed waves of feeling, so that the pain is contained and blocked inside. The fearful groan he draws in and the jiff he takes empty the belly and hollow out the sides, exposing to our view the movement of his entrails, as it were. Nonetheless his own suffering seems to concern him less than the agony of his children, who plow their faces toward their father and cry out for help. The father'south heart is manifested in the wistful eyes, and his compassion seems to float over them like a cloudy exhalation. His face up is plaintive rather than agonised; his eyes turned toward the higher ability. The mouth is total of sorrow, and the lowered bottom lip is heavy with it; in the up drawn top lip, this sorrow is mixed with hurting, which in the staring of discontent, equally at an undeserved and unworthy suffering, runs up to the olfactory organ, swelling it and manifesting itself in the dilated and upwardly drawn nostrils."
And, of the Dais Apollo, "this Apollo surpasses all other images of him every bit much every bit the Apollo of Homer surpasses those betrayed past later poets. His build is elevated above the homo, and his stance bears witness to the fullness of his grandeur. An eternal springtime, like that of the blissful Elysian Fields, dress the alluring virility of mature years with a pleasing youth and plays with soft tenderness upon the lofty construction of his limbs. Become with thy spirit into the realm of incorporeal beauties and seek to become a creator of a heavenly nature, so that the spirit might exist filled with beauties that rise above nature – for here there is nothing mortal, nothing that betokens miserable humanity. No veins or sinews heat and motility this body, but rather a heavenly spirit that, flowing like a gentle stream, has saturated, as it were, every profile of this figure."
Mind you, for all of the high poeticism of these descriptions, his denunciations of writers with whom he disagrees are peremptory and edgeless: "… previous treatises on ancient clothing have been more learned than instructive and specific, and thus an artist, having read them, would be less knowledgeable than earlier. Such writings are compiled by individuals whose knowledge comes merely from books, not from visual acquaintance with works of fine art." (Information technology is worth pointing out that Winckelmann'south own descriptions of the representation of fabric are remarkably perceptive in their minute analysis.)
He dismisses 1 Malvasia, "a historian of the Bolognese painters and a human being without gustatory modality."
From the distance of some centuries, we can be amused by some of his outmoded attempts at science: "Fifty-fifty the parts of the genitals have their special beauty. Of the testicles, the left one is ever larger, as it is plant in nature."
"The Campanians were a people in whom the mild climate that they enjoyed and the fertile soil that they cultivated instilled voluptuousness." And, "… the warmer the region of Italy, the greater the talents that information technology fosters, and the more fiery the imagination: the Sicilian poets are full of rare, new and unexpected images. Yet this peppery imagination is not aroused and ebullient; rather, like the temperament of the people and the conditions of this land, information technology is more compatible than in colder countries – for nature gives rise to an auspicious phlegm here (in Italy) more often than there." It is surely the example that, in three hundred years, many of our ain assumptions will have become ludicrously quaint.
This edition of Winckelmann contains a valuable 36 page introduction by Potts, and the text itself is of 240 pages, each densely printed. The quality of the whole product is consistently impressive. At that place is a peachy joy to be had from reading this almost erudite and challenging of pathfinders. ...more
Mar 18, 2022 Lia rated it liked it
While it's on the list of must-read books for anyone studying fine art history, I'd recommend it for those whose interests eye on:
- aboriginal Greek and Roman art
- archeology
- sculpture and architecture
Proceed in mind, however, that since Winckelmann's History of the Fine art of Antiquity was published in 1764, there are a few things that will make it difficult to read:
- dated and formal language (nothing to worry about for art historians who are used to that)
- the fact that some of the best known chief
- ancient Greek and Roman art
- archeology
- sculpture and architecture
Keep in mind, all the same, that since Winckelmann's History of the Fine art of Antiquity was published in 1764, there are a few things that will arrive hard to read:
- dated and formal language (nothing to worry about for fine art historians who are used to that)
- the fact that some of the best known masterpieces of antiquity – like Venus de Milo (discovered 1820) or the Riace bronzes (discovered in the 70'south) – aren't discussed in Winckelmann's piece of work for obvious reasons
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman fine art. "The prophet and founding hero of modernistic archaeology", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a big, systematic basis to the history of art. Many co Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German fine art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the deviation betwixt Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman fine art. "The prophet and founding hero of modernistic archaeology", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archeology and first practical the categories of way on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the begetter of the subject of art history. His would exist the decisive influence on the rising of the neoclassical move during the belatedly 18th century. His writings influenced not only a new science of archæology and art history but Western painting, sculpture, literature and fifty-fifty philosophy. Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art (1764) was 1 of the first books written in German language to go a archetype of European literature. His subsequent influence on Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, and Spengler has been provocatively chosen "the Tyranny of Greece over Federal republic of germany." ...more
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